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How to start a company with no free time

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Re: How to start a company with no free time

#71

Post by chrishacken »

ThomPete wrote: post #69
lubujackson wrote: post #12

After having a baby I struggled to switch from marathon coding sessions to trying to punch out code in hour, half hour or even 10 minute increments. The best advice is what she said - plan and divide tasks ruthlessly. There's always bits of time to work on your task list on your phone or flesh out a bit of meta-code in your to-do list, and now I'm able to do the brunt of the "thinking" work in the shower or wherever,…

I have done the same with my side projects and I have two kids plus a full time job. I even built a tool that let me add contextual notes or todos to my files, folders, applications, open documents and websites for the next time I picked it up (I am not a developer but a designer) and turned that into a pretty successful notes app. Now my even bigger project which require me to split things into even smaller buckets…

Care to share the notes app?

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#72

Post by ThomPete »

chrishacken wrote: post #71
ThomPete wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done the same with my side projects and I have two kids plus a full time job. I even built a tool that let me add contextual notes or todos to my files, folders, applications, open documents and websites for the next time I picked it up (I am not a developer but a designer) and turned that into a pretty successful notes app. Now my even bigger project which require me to split things into even smaller buckets…

Care to share the notes app?

http://www.ghostnoteapp.com/

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#73

Post by this-dang-guy »

bbcbasic wrote: post #43
this-dang-guy wrote: post #38

Must say I'm a bit jealous - when I started my company, I didn't have any need to decline VC coffee invites... it was all I could do to get enough interested parties to even get moving. Good tips on time mgmt though, I guess

Are you based in San Fran though? Sounds like the city flowing with VC cash

Must be. No, I'm not. I'm based in AZ.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#74

Post by xrd »

roryisok wrote: post #56
xrd wrote: post #55

I didn't start a company but wrote an app I'm very proud of. And that app put me in a position to write a book for O'Reilly. I did lots of the coding and writing at 3 am when my wife was asleep and I was up with one of the kids. Kids are great at forcing you to focus and prioritize, things I was never great at before they arrived. And, kids teach you what's really important and that is a good lesson when running a co…

I have two kids, and my coding time is suffering. How the heck did you code while up with your kid at 3am? What was the kid doing??

The kid was sleeping on my chest. I call it the one handed editor for this reason: http://blog.teddyhyde.com/2013/04/03/teddy-hyde-the-no-compr...

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#76

Post by xrd »

roryisok wrote: post #56
xrd wrote: post #55

I didn't start a company but wrote an app I'm very proud of. And that app put me in a position to write a book for O'Reilly. I did lots of the coding and writing at 3 am when my wife was asleep and I was up with one of the kids. Kids are great at forcing you to focus and prioritize, things I was never great at before they arrived. And, kids teach you what's really important and that is a good lesson when running a co…

I have two kids, and my coding time is suffering. How the heck did you code while up with your kid at 3am? What was the kid doing??

I'm still somewhat amazed I was able to do this but necessity is the mother of innovation. Perhaps a corollary is that mothers birth infants that really remind you of the necessity to code.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#77

Post by exergy »

er0l wrote: post #64

I think I agree with everything but #1. Completely shutting off from people who although may not invest, can still provide valuable information or advice as they may have experienced something you have not.

Personally, I get the feeling that most people who start a company are tired of _some_ status quo, and have strong opinions on how they want the end product to look like. Therefore, the last thing they want to do is listen to people telling them how their product should be. And since initially, all you care about are the technical challenges, it stands to reason that coding minutes and hours are more useful than schmoozing and advice garnering.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#78

Post by smustin »

hodgesrm wrote: post #42
ggregoire wrote: post #24

I'm surprised by the points 1 and 3. I started a company 2 months ago as solo founder and I work everyday on the product (a SaaS for small/mid companies). I really have no free time to do marketing yet or promote my idea. I just focus on having a MVP. 1. "Decline invitations from VCs to drink a coffee" I've never received any attention from a VC, like probably most founders when they started their first company. It s…

I wouldn't take point 1 literally. It's more like avoid time-wasting meetings which also includes conferences, entrepreneur meetups, team-building seminars, you name it. (Unless the people you are selling to are at those meetings in which case it's probably not a waste of time.)

Thank you! That is what I meant. More generally, don't waste your time chatting with people (unless they are your potential customers and you're trying to get to product market fit). Spend your time BUILDING!

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#79

Post by smustin »

roryisok wrote: post #56
xrd wrote: post #55

I didn't start a company but wrote an app I'm very proud of. And that app put me in a position to write a book for O'Reilly. I did lots of the coding and writing at 3 am when my wife was asleep and I was up with one of the kids. Kids are great at forcing you to focus and prioritize, things I was never great at before they arrived. And, kids teach you what's really important and that is a good lesson when running a co…

I have two kids, and my coding time is suffering. How the heck did you code while up with your kid at 3am? What was the kid doing??

I didn't code while taking care of my kid. My kid has childcare during the day! People love to assume that women are all just staying home watching their kids all day...

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#80

Post by smustin »

logicallee wrote: post #70
a_imho wrote: post #10

3. Don’t go it alone Using the money time duality is a bit cheating to be honest. At least in my experience people with 9-17 jobs don't have that kind of money to hire people.

I think we should be respectful of the audience that this blog post is and isn't for -- where it says that VC's can be "quite persistent" asking for coffees, this kind of shows you the kind of audience this is written for. And yes, if you're the kind of person that in the words of the article: >I would say “Hey, during these next couple months it will be very tough for me to meet in person, but I’d love to still help…

To be clear, I didn't pay people in the beginning. I had a cofounder and an advisor and we all coded and worked FOR FREE before we raised money.
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